William Dalrymple

But To be honest, as I really thought about it, I don't think such a category exists because there are so many types of history and different qualities are needed in each.

So, you know, when I think about Indian history, you know, Ramachandra Guha or William Dalrymple are just amazing.

very different people.

They focus on very different eras.

Till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Anand.

And goodbye from me, William Dalrymple.

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Oh.

They said, they said, "Do you have any other ideas?" And I hadn't, but I'd been listening on the way over to this fantastic podcast called Empire by William Dalrymple-

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... and Anita Anand, and they'd been talking about the Koh-i-Noor diamond.

Going as far as to call the whole thing a myth of modern academia, Ball argues that there was no coherent overland trade system and no free movement of goods from East Asia to West until the period of the Mongol Empire.

William Dalrymple points out that in pre-modern times, maritime travel cost only a fifth of overland transport and argues for the pre-13th century primacy of an India-dominated Golden Road extending from Rome to Japan.

Two important Silk Road paths from Merv went through Nisa and Sarox.

They joined together in Meshad, a big religious and trade city in Khorasan.

So from Anita and me, thank you, uh, everybody for listening.

From me, William Dalrymple, goodbye.

And from me, Anita Anand.

Goodbye.

Till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Anand.

And goodbye from me, William Dalrymple.

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This episode is brought to you by ChatGPT.

The large companies have access to, usually they have access to the leadership of the countries.

William Dalrymple wrote an opinion piece last week about what it took for the UK to dismantle the British East India Company.

By the time that the Punjab wars are fought in the 1740s, 1750s, Something very, very strange and sinister has happened because the East India Company Army, which is only about 20,000 strong at a time of passive or less, has grown to 200,000 Indian sepoys at a time when the British Army, 1799, before the re-arming, is only 100,000 soldiers.

He wrote about how leadership of that joint stock company faced impeachment with Edmund Burke in the role of prosecutor.

In this episode, we follow Bin Laden's descent from the Saudi elite to a terrorist financier in Sudan, and his desperate flight back to the mountains of Afghanistan.

Welcome back to Empire with me, William Dalrymple.

And me, Anita Anand.

And, uh, back with us, double Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA in Afghanistan and Bin Laden, and The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century.

And if you want to access all that right now ad-free, then head to empirepoduk.com. That is empirepoduk.com to become a member now.

Till the next time we meet, it's goodbye from me, Anita Anand.

And goodbye from me, William Durrnvoll.

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[upbeat music] Welcome back to Empire with me, Anita Anand.

And me, William Drumple.

And joining us for the next two episodes, I am very proud to say, we have back one of my oldest friends, and a wonderful, wonderful man, uh, an Empire veteran, the winner of not one but two Pulitzer Prizes.

Uh, Steve Coll, the author of Ghost Wars: The Secret History of the CIA, Afghanistan, and Bin Laden, and The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century.